RESOLVING THE LEDGER
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FKA Twigs has defeated trademark infringement claims over her stage name, with a judge ruling that indie band The Twigs forfeited its right to sue due to years of inaction.
The Tuesday (Aug. 18) ruling, first obtained and reported by Billboard , dismisses infringement claims lodged in May by The Twigs (twin sisters Laura Good and Linda Good) against FKA Twigs (Tahliah Barnett). The case is not yet over, since the Eusexua artist still has pending claims of her own against the sisters.
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The Twigs first sued FKA Twigs back in 2014 for infringing the trademark they’d owned since 1996, though they dropped that lawsuit after losing an initial injunction request. Things went quiet until a decade later, when the sisters again began arguing that FKA Twigs had used her greater fame to “weaken, if not destroy” their own intellectual property.
On Thursday, U.S. District Judge Jed S. Rakoff ruled that The Twigs’ infringement claims are time-barred. Technically speaking, the judge held that the claims are too old under the doctrine of laches, which prohibits the unreasonable delay of legal action.
“The Goods were aware of Barnett’s allegedly infringing activity as early as 2013 when the parties exchanged emails, and certainly no later than 2014 when the Goods sued Barnett alleging trademark infringement,” wrote Judge Rakoff. “After the Goods dismissed their suit, Barnett continued releasing music under the name ‘FKA twigs.’ Yet the Goods did not take any action until 2024 and did not bring the instant claims until 2026. In other words, the Goods let their claims lie fallow for at least a decade.”
In trademark lawsuits, the laches doctrine does not apply to situations of “intentional” infringement. The Twigs argued that their case fell under this exception, but Judge Rakoff flatly disagreed. “The pleadings do not remotely support the inference that Barnett intended to promote confusion between herself and the Goods,” he wrote.
The upshot of Tuesday’s ruling is that FKA Twigs cannot be sued for infringing the trademark “The Twigs”. A dispute remains, however, over the singer’s separate application for her own trademark, “FKA Twigs.”
The Atlantic Records artist has pending legal claims that seek to stop The Twigs from interfering in her trademark registration process. Judge Rakoff said evidence discovery must be conducted before he can make a ruling one way or the other on that issue.
Lawyers for FKA Twigs and The Twigs did not immediately return requests for comment on the decision Tuesday.
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